Dear Sensei, Show Us How You Roll

simple pickles, polls and a Guest Chef!

I think it is safe to say that I will not be putting Sushi Master on my resume anytime soon. It was simultaneously simple and incredibly challenging, which is how I see Japanese cuisine as a whole. Everything is simple yet complicated, precise yet not overdone, and impeccable but approachable. I have always wanted to go to Japan, and taking a little dive into making sushi has given me even MORE respect for the culture.

Recipes I cooked:

Red Dragon Roll - Spicy carrot filling, avocado, cucumber, inari

Pickled Daikon

Sushi Rice

I despise single-use items.

Garlic press NO I have a knife

Apple slicer NO I have a knife

Air-fryer NO I have an oven (but got one as a gift and kind of love it)

Rice cooker NO I have a pot

The rice cooker was just one more appliance that I would have to make room for and having too much ‘stuff’ is a phobia. I have contemplated a rice cooker for, oh, eight years now and have never pulled the trigger. Still very much on the fence about this single-use item, I put out a poll.

Do I need a rice cooker?

Check yes or no

I got a resounding YES from the community. A few suggested an instant pot but I went back to the list and thought, but I already have a crockpot, and they do kind of the same thing…also rarely am I in need of a soup so abruptly that I can’t be bothered to let it simmer. I can’t justify buying one. (My needs are my needs, please use your instant pot with no judgment.)

I bought the rice cooker, a very small one, out of spite. Here’s the thing. It worked great. I rinsed and measured and let it do its thing. I have successfully made rice in a pot many times. And a small percentage of those times, the rice just might have been a bit on the crunchy side. SO hopefully, I never have to eat a piece of not-quite-cooked rice EVER AGAIN. Or I will be forced to write a strongly worded letter! To whom, I don’t know. BUT I will have my voice heard!

Let’s take a breath and gaze fondly at our instant pots (rice cooker in my case) and then I would like to introduce you to how we got ourselves into this sticky rice situation.

It’s GUEST CHEF FRIDAY!

A highly entertaining addition to the coveted weekly cookbook newsletter. I have been having so much fun writing and cooking that I thought WE must explore as many recipe authors, cookbook creators, and food artists as we can! I have so many great friends and fellow Substack creators who are MASTERS in the food realm, and I want you to know about ‘em.

We are going sushi this week. And not just any sushi, plant-based sushi (say what?!) Chef Marisa Baggett will be our plant-based sushi guide and I am beyond excited!

Chef Baggett was just minding her business, happy running her catering company and designing wedding cakes WHEN one weee little client request changed her whole culinary trajectory.

The client requested that Baggett make something special for their event and that something special just so happened to be sushi. Baggett was living in a small town in Mississippi at the time and had never eaten or even seen sushi before, but accepted the challenge anyway. (Get it, girl, that is courage!) This one ‘simple’ request catapulted Baggett into her love of sushi and Japanese cuisine. She trained to become a professional sushi chef, worked at sushi bars, and spent a lot of her career teaching. Currently, Baggett is focused on showcasing the beauty, versatility, and of course the deliciousness of plant-based sushi and Japanese cuisine.

Follow along with Chef Baggett by subscribing to her newsletter, Dear Sensei.

So, here we are in my kitchen making plant-based sushi.

Set yourself up for success

• Use your new rice cooker to cook the rice.

• Prep all of your ingredients.

• Lay out all of your ingredients on 17 little plates and bowls.

• Wrap your makisu (rolling mat) in plastic.

• Have a bowl of water close by to prevent rice from sticking to you, because it will.

We are making a Red Dragon Roll. The filling for this roll is similar to a spicy salmon roll, but instead of fish, we used cooked carrots and pureed them until they broke down but still retained a little texture. Mixed with some sesame oil, sriracha, green onions, and sesame seeds, the filling came together quickly and tasted great.

The spicy carrot filling is a 10/10 and can be used for many different things if you are not into rolling sushi which might be me. All the sushi flavors and none of the fuss make a good old-fashioned rice bowl aka deconstructed sushi.

The recipe calls for inari (pause to consider if you know what this is). I had no idea, Baggett instructed me to look for the canned version if I couldn’t find it fresh - see below. It turns out I did find it fresh when I went to the Asian grocery store but it didn’t click until after I got home.

Inari is fried tofu that has been simmered in a sweet and savory broth. It is delicious. Typically, it is served in its pouch form and stuffed with sushi rice. We cut it into strips to give our dragon roll a little sweet umami flare. Baggett says this is a very underrated sushi ingredient, and I agree. Inari would also make a great addition to those bowls we were talking about earlier.

I would rate my sushi experience a 6/10. Here is a list of my issues. Correction, my sushi specific issues.

• Overfilling

• Underfilling

• Rolling to tight

• Not rolling tight enough

• Cutting the sushi. Just in general this was the most disastrous part.

• Rice sticking to EVERYTHING. Dipping your hands in water helped this but that wasn’t implemented until later in the game.

Have I discouraged you? I hope not. I did learn a LOT, and because of this I kinda sorta want to try it again. I did two separate rolling sessions and the second time I did get better I just had a different set of issues arise. Maybe round three will help the progress along?

In the amazing documentary, Jiro Dreams of Sushi, Jiro the sushi Master says it takes ten years to become a Master at something BUT really a lifetime is more realistic. I logged a solid three hours so I am feeling pretty good about where I am at. (Pats self on the back, pours a glass of sparkling water with lemon, I’ve earned this.)

Here are my spoils and yes I cherry-picked the BEST looking pieces to photograph, I am only human.

Attempt one:

Attempt two:

If you tried your best as I did and want to hide the many flaws of your hand-rolled sushi you can present them like this. No one will be any the wiser unless they go to pick up a piece and it all falls apart.

The Red Dragon Roll tastes delicious and I will go on the record of saying that I didn’t miss the fish. I still want the fish but I didn’t miss it.

I like all of you and want you to get the full picture of what went down in this sushi adventure. The picture below is all my ‘rejects’ and then the pile of absolute destruction (top left). It took this many pieces of sushi for me to get like six mildly acceptable-looking pieces for the glamour shot.

I will be eating all of these. Just because they didn’t make the front cover doesn’t mean they are trash!

Baggett also suggests crisping up some of your sushi rice and topping it with the spicy carrot filling for a fun (not stressful) way to enjoy the extra bits if you have them. Or in lieu of rolling, you can do this. Crispy rice is very satisfying, no regrets.

I also pickled some daikon.

After the sushi situation, it seems like an ‘okay, cool’ response is warranted.

Daikon is a type of radish also known as a Chinese radish but not the same as a Korean radish. Korean radishes are shorter and a bit squatty. The daikon/Chinese radishes were LONG as hell. I mean, some were two feet long. I had to dig through the pile to find one that didn’t replicate a vision from one of my nightmares.

The texture of a daikon is crisp and crunchy like an apple.

The flavor profile is mildly sweet and peppery.

It looks like a long/large white carrot.

Peeled and sliced, you put it into a jar with rice wine vinegar, sugar, salt, and some turmeric. Let it hang out in the fridge until you are ready for something pickley. Another great topping for those bowls we have been on about.

If you are looking for a hobby I would suggest taking up pickling. You can pickle anything. (Thanks to Portlandia for enlightening us.)

We can pickle that. And we should pickle that.

Thank you, Chef Baggett for being our sushi guide! I learned so many things, bought a rice cooker, and made some delicious pickles. What more could one ask for?!

For more beautiful and delicious plant-based sushi and Japanese cuisine, go subscribe to Baguett’s newsletter!

Always a pleasure to have you cooking and reading along with me, I am very grateful. I will forever bow down to sushi chefs, the finesse, the patience, the art!

Cheers,

the Culinary Maven, Nicole S.